Out: Saturday Dance at Anime Boston

Every year, teenage otaku from all over New England swarm the Hynes Convention Center for Anime Boston,
an orgy of Japanese anime, manga, and video games (or pretty much
anything involving adorable characters with enormous leaky eyes) that
prides itself on being the largest anime convention in the Northeast.
(Check out Maddy Myers's trip report here, complete with a video of the madness.)

On Saturday, I arrive just in time for the “Informal Dance,” a sweaty
PG rave in the adjoining Sheraton Grand Ballroom. On stage, DJs ILP and
Binary spin DnB and psy-trance, flanked by two gigantic screens showing
swirling yin-yangs. As I scope out a cluster of kids in fluffy yeti
boots swinging glowsticks and LED batons, I feel as if I’ve stumbled
into a wormhole to an alternate-universe ’90s. A grey-bearded dude
saunters past; he’s sporting a Pikachu hat with pathetically wilted
ears and brandishing a digital camera. It’s disturbing to watch Uncle
Creepy–san film the heaving sea of gyrating kids on the dance floor,
but at least it means I’m not the oldest person in the room.

From the periphery, I glimpse a pink-wigged girl freak-dancing with a guy wearing a Naruto
robe and a huge shit-eating grin while two ectomorphs in Guy Fawkes
masks stomp along to a happy hardcore track. A mom wanders in with her
daughter, who can’t be more than eight years old; the girl is utterly
mesmerized. Nearby, a gaggle of corseted girls bust out some kind of
elaborate Chinese-jump-rope-style dance move. Admiring their chops, a
kid next to me advises his pal, “When in doubt, DDR.”

Suddenly, the lights on stage flash red and out come Bespa Kumamero
— an industrial techno duo “all the way from Tokyo, Japan.” The crowd
goes apeshit. As hundreds of fist-pumping anime fans pogo along to
“Girl & Bunny” (which sounds a little like a mash-up of Madonna and
the Aladdin video-game soundtrack), I swear I can feel the floor sway.

The energy is infectious, and the rubbernecking’s top-notch, but
gawking at high-schoolers from the sidelines and scribbling furtive
notes about them is starting to make me feel like a narc. Right around
the time Creepy-san switches out his Pikachu cap for little green satin
cat ears, I decide it’s time to bounce. The lobby outside the ballroom
is littered with messenger bags, plushie backpacks, and cheerfully
bedraggled congoers — the hallmarks of another successful Anime Boston.